Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Garima (wifie) suggested (read 'almost forced') to write the review of 'Two States', a recent Hindi movie released last week. And since I am a true follower of the saying - 'If wife is happy, life is happy; if wife is unhappy, life is unhappy', I was left with no option but to try my hand on the fourth review article in this blog.

Writing a review is tough, really tough; especially if you had already seen reviews by other people. Two States is a 'no-nonsense' movie with a good story line which is based on Chetan Bhagat's famous novel cum semi-autobiography with the same name. Initially I was afraid fearing if it would be a disaster like Hello (inspired from Chetan Bhagat's One Night at call center) but Mr. Varman (Director) proved me wrong. Director gets kudos for ensuring that movie-goers enjoy as much as they enjoyed the book by having no touch ups on original story-line.

For those who haven't read the book; the story is of a young man who would like to be a writer and no, it is not about his struggle with publisher houses but its about how he fell in love with a south Indian girl (Tamilian to be specific) and how he fights all the odds in order to convince his parents-in-laws and parents to lead a happy ending. The story is also about the bitter relationship between the Protagonist Krish (played by Arjun Kapoor) & his father (played by Ronit Roy).

The witty dialogues and situations Krish & Ananya (played by Alia bhatt) had to face while trying to convince their families so that both their families are present on their marriage; keep you stick with your chair in theater. The movie is not as happening as typical Bollywood stuff (recalling DDLJ, KKHH, HDDCS etc) but its strong story-line and brilliant acting by all the actors makes it as a paisa-vasool timepass.

Coming to acting, you will love the chemistry between Krish & Ananya. As soon as you feel a little monotonous, Aliya Bhatt would appear on screen with an intelligent head on her shoulder (that's how they have presented her) bulling a Punjabi groom in an arrange marriage at Krish's place or eating chicken and calling herself as 'Shudhh Tamil Brahmin'.

Whenever Ronit Roy comes on 90 mm screen, he completely justifies his role. As Krish's father, you actually start hating him (and keep hating him) until he plays a key role to happy ending. Ravathy & Subramanium justify their roles as Ananya's parents and Amrita Singh goes well with her role as typical Punjabi mother & mother-in-law, and how can I forget this line - "Punjabi mother-in-law se khatarnaak kuchh nai hota is duniya me"

And by the way, when I was reading 'Two States' few years back, I wrote a poem (Dec 2009) to depict the relationship between the Protagonist & his father. This is a chance to re-post it without any changes:

Monday I saw the new sun rising from the east

I am still feeling the words said by that priest

The whole burden of sorrows was off my head

1st time after a long time I got up with a smile from my bed!

It was a dream which was the cause of my happiness

The old man came to me and asked for the reason of my wretchedness

The old man was wearing white clothes with a balding head

I felt the energy when he put his hand on my head!

He advised me to understand the true meaning of ‘forgiveness’

How easy it is to take off the load from the head and feel burden less

I exactly did the same and hugged my father in my dream

I realized it was so easy to forgive than cursing!

And how can I miss to highlight some good music numbers (off-course adjusted badly in the story-line). Here's my fav one:

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

PS: Have learnt a new thing today from Nabanita - tagging fellow bloggers and trying it on my blog. Listing down few great blogs from A-to-Z challenge. They are all awesome - Shesha, Shine, S(t)ri, Dagny, Tasha, Damyanti.

The 'R' post (with reference to A-to-Z challenge) is coming late this time. I would have written a Poem or a Haiku and that's what suits my style; but today I am sharing this post based on a real conversation with one of the greatest friends of mine. Let's call him a special friend; I don't want to term him Aaptard though he sounded like one. I came across this new term recently as an outcome of Indian General Election 2014. Its been discussed a lot during social media interactions but alas; I experienced the real meaning of this term after having a conversation with my special Friend.

Without making any changes; I am sharing the actual snapshot of our conversation over an FB status, posted by my special friend. He shared one of the newspaper links talking about Praveen Togadia's latest hate speech; which Praveen Togadia responded with a legal notice to all the newspapers. I curiously tried searching this specific hate speech but failed; and told my friend to go through the legal notice.

Below are original snapshots from our conversation -

Outcome: Surprisingly my special friend deleted my original comments only to leave me with strange feelings. He didn't stop there and astonished me by removing his original post and un-friending me from his friend-list. Alas...did I just lose a precious friendship because of reaction from my friend!! What do you think would have been the situation if he had responded (not reacted) to my thoughts rather than being prejudice and implying his perception!!!

PS: I don't support Togadia...He has been controversial all the time; neither I support anyone who dares to shake the foundation of harmony of Indian Society by making hate speeches.

PS: Queen is a Hindi movie describing the story of a girl who gets rejected by her boyfriend a day before their wedding. She cries a lot and makes a decision to go to honeymoon alone where she discovers her true-self.

PPS: Had to travel on an emergency trip without my laptop hence missed on MNOP....hope to post missing posts soon!!